THE BEST OF PUNCH CARTOONS
Britain
Walasek divides the content into time periods and precedes the show with the briefest of introductions, which, despite the brevity, manages to explain how the word cartoon, meaning a humorous drawing, was derived from the Italian cartone, meaning preliminary drawing, through the inadvertent machinations of the magazine, which submitted several “cartoons” (mock preliminary drawings) in a contest held in 1843 to select mural decorations for the newly constructed Houses of Parliament. The first of the satirical sketches, by John Leech, was labeled, with startling prescience, “Cartoon No. 1.” It and its Punch successors in the mural contest were amusing enough to result in all humorous drawings in the magazine (previously termed “pencilings”) being called “cartoons” ever after.
It is a
matter of supreme gratification to me to observe that the Leech drawing, the
official “first cartoon” in the history of the medium, is one in which the
verbal-visual blending is thoroughly interdependent: the meaning and import of
the caption, “Substance and Shadow,” referring to the actual wretches in the
cartoon and to the paintings, the shadows, they contemplate, is achieved
through the picture, and the picture acquires greater significance by virtue of
the caption. Neither words nor picture make the same sense alone without the
other — a perfect exemplar of the best that cartooning can achieve.
At appropriate intervals through the visual history, Walasek collects a couple pages exemplifying the work of various Punch cartoonists, including several of my favorites—the incomparable Fougasse, and H.M. Bateman, E.H. Shepard, Rowland Emett, Norman Thelwell, Ronald Searle (who, at 90, is still alive and reveals that champagne is the secret to long life in an interview with Valerie Grove at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk) — and, in other short sections, features some of the magazine’s zanier efforts on such topics as Early Motoring, The Space Race, Holidays, and, finally, Lemmings.
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